On the inside

I've kind of been floating around. Like I'm in space. It usually happens. Mostly because I have a thing for the parallel world. And because I don't have a clue as to whats happening and where I want to go in life. People keep asking me what I "plan to achieve" with my religious education. Or, what will I be doing "after that." My answer is usually a well constructed smile with "I haven't thought of that, yet." And their reaction is generally a badly masked disappointed- Oh.

It doesn't help that most of these questions come from my mom.

In another two days, I will be leaving for Iran, Inshallah. I have mixed feeling most of the time about that. But I guess I'm just fine now. I know I want to be there. It's weird because sometimes I feel that life is THERE and sometimes that life is HERE. I like the fact that I am more in touch with myself and my spiritual being while I'm in Iran. And that I'm a better person there. When I come back home, I feel out of routine and a purpose in general. No matter how much of an elaborate chart i construct while in Iran of the things i need to get done while I'm in India, a sad percentage of that actually is done. But while I'm here, I feel like I'm more in touch with the REAL world and life how it REALLY is. The battles and conflicts and spiritual lows one has to combat with, all happens here. Not that Iran doesn't have it's own conflicts. But it's different there. It's like, when I'm at home, I don't feel like I'm a better person today than yesterday. But in Iran, I know everyday has a lil adventure of it's own. Something new to look forward to. Something new to learn. Something new to expect. Whats important is not to let the routine get to you. And to have a nice motivating and energizing schedule for everyday. It's something I have in mind for the new term. It's what has me almost resolved to start University again when I return to India for good. That, and to get a real career direction. It's not like I'm a teenager anymore.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how this world is a mayajaal- literally translated as a mega trap. (Indian mythology.) How almost everything out here is designed to trap us into it.
Like, consider this hadith from the Prophet (S)-

"If it were not because of speaking too much and because of those bad thoughts which come to your heart, you would have been able to see what I see and hear what I hear"

Consider the amount of vain, shallow and futile chatter we occupy ourselves with. I tell myself first. And all the bad thoughts that not just enter our mind, but as the Prophet said which "come to your heart"- which expertly trudge their way from our eyes, to our mind, and make them a part of our heart. The amount of trash we watch and listen to on TV and elsewhere. The nonsense that we're bombarded with from everywhere. A lot of things can be uncontrollable, yes. But with time, we like to push even the very controllable factors into the uncontrollable heap. Consider the out there, non-hypothetical possibility to see what the Prophet (S) saw, and to hear what the Prophet (S) heard. Our natural logical response is- That can't happen with us in this world!

Do we really have no hope? Are we all just doomed?
We'd like to believe that. But in reality, as Imam Ali (a.s) once said-
Man is the Master of his Destiny.